New Delhi: A day ahead of Parliament’s monsoon session, the government convened an all-party meeting on Sunday in which the opposition raised various issues, including voter roll revision in Bihar as well as the Pahalgam terror attack.
The meeting was called in by the government to seek cooperation from opposition parties for the smooth conduct of the House. Leaders of various political parties including Gaurav Gogoi and Jairam Ramesh of the Congress, Supriya Sule of NCP-Sharad Pawar, DMK’s T R Baalu, and Sanjay Singh of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), attended the meeting, where the government was represented by Parliamentary Affairs Kiren Rijiju and his junior minister Arjun Ram Meghwal.
Talking to reporters after the meeting, Sanjay Singh said he raised the alleged “poll scam” of Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bihar and US President Donald Trump’s claim that he brokered ‘ceasefire’ between India and Pakistan, at the meeting. Responding to a question, he said the INDIA bloc is only for Lok Sabha polls and AAP is contesting assembly polls on its own.
Gogoi said Congress sought PM Modi’s statement in the Parliament on Trump’s claims, ‘lapses’ in Pahalgam, and Bihar SIR.
INDIA bloc parties have resolved to raise during the Parliament’s Monsoon session the issues of Pahalgam attack terrorists not being brought to justice, Trump’s repeated claims of brokering a ‘ceasefire’ during India-Pakistan hostilities and the SIR in Bihar that the opposition alleges “threatens people’s voting rights”.
On Saturday, the leaders of 24 opposition parties of the bloc held an online meeting where they decided to raise eight major issues like foreign policy “failure” and “atrocities” in Gaza, delimitation exercise and “targeting” of SCs/STs, women and minorities in the country.
Addressing the media after the meeting, the Congress’ deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha, Pramod Tiwari, said the opposition parties would expect the prime minister to be present in Parliament and respond to the issues raised on the floor of the House, asserting that “Parliament is more important than travelling abroad”.
After the meeting, Congress general secretary organisation K C Venugopal said the opposition would raise the urgent need to restore full statehood for Jammu and Kashmir. It was also decided that an in-person meeting of the INDIA bloc leaders will be held in August, he said.
The opposition grouping has not met for a long time. Notably, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which is a founding member of the bloc, decided to opt out of the Saturday online meeting after it announced that it is no longer a part of the bloc. Incidentally, several senior leaders of the group, including chief ministers of West Bengal and Tamil Nadu — Mamata Banerjee and M K Stalin — were not present in the meeting.
Leaders who participated included Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Congress parliamentary party chief Sonia Gandhi, former party chief Rahul Gandhi, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, NCP (SP)’s Sharad Pawar, Uddhav Thackeray (SS-UBT), Abhishek Banerjee (TMC), Tejashwi Yadav (RJD), Ram Gopal Yadav (SP), Tiruchi Siva (DMK) M A Baby of CPI-M, D Raja (CPI), CPI(ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, among others.
The leaders expressed serious concern over the government’s “inaction” in bringing to justice the terrorists behind the Pahalgam attack and its “silence” on repeated claims made by US President Donald Trump in bringing about a ‘ceasefire’ on the hostilities between India and Pakistan, according to Tiwari.
“We discussed the strategy on how we should raise the atrocities and failures of this government that is affecting the people. I am happy to inform that leaders of all 24 parties participated in the meeting,” he said.